Someone should have told comedian Johnny Vegas that fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. Vegas is the stage persona of British stand-up comedian Michael Pennington, whose act has been described as dangerous, confrontational, [and] out of control. Last Friday night in London, Vegas appeared as a "special guest" on a tour called 10 Greatest Stand-Ups, and many reviewers who caught his act found the performance nothing short of sexual assault: Vegas brought a young woman who appeared to be about 19 onstage, and proceeded to squeeze her breast, finger her through her clothes, and kiss her, after he had repeatedly told her that he wanted to be "inside" her.

Here's a more detailed account of how it went down, according to the Guardian's Mary O'Hara:

Vegas stepped on stage to cheers and immediately announced that he had no material, and that he was there mostly to get laid. There followed a short meandering ramble (mainly about lap dancers) before he turned his attention to the audience - and to one young woman in particular in the front row who, he announced, he wanted to be 'inside'...The woman he focused on was about 18 or 19 and was very obviously unnerved by his attention...Once she was on stage, Vegas told her to lie very still. She couldn't stop her nervous giggling; he threatened to kick her in the ribs. It didn't come across to me as a joke - and near to where I was sitting, no one was laughing. Eventually Vegas crouched down beside the nervous girl and started stroking her breasts while repeatedly saying, "don't fucking move". Then he ran his hand up her leg and began pulling her skirt up. Every time he looked up to address the audience, she would reach down and pull her skirt back down, but he kept pulling it back up.

According to a commenter named James Williams on the Not BBC forums, Vegas then started "fingering her through her clothes for a second or two" before ending his act.

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Supporters of Vegas on the Not BBC forums and elsewhere argue that at no time did the woman refuse Vegas's advances; another commenter said he particularly enjoyed the "the discomfort [Vegas inspired] in the predominately middle-class section of the audience I was sitting in." Mary O'Hara and others point out that the woman, young as she was, may have felt she couldn't say "no", as Vegas was singling her out in a crowd full of cheering, jeering people and that she had no idea what was going to happen once she got onstage, and perhaps felt unable to fight back.

This is complete conjecture, but in an interview with the Guardian from two years ago, writer Decca Aitkenhead talks about how when Pennington created his "Johnny Vegas" angry-drunk-aggressive persona, he was "bitter and directionless, drifting between bar jobs in London and Glasgow. By 25 he still hadn't had a girlfriend." He created "Vegas" after he moved back in with his parents. Is Johnny's treatment of this woman payback for all those women who rejected him in late teens and early 20s? It's unclear. What is pretty evident, however, is that Vegas crossed the line on Friday night and called it "comedy." James Williams on Not BBC put it this way: "I don't like to think that any area is out of bounds for comedy, even if the comedy is lazy nonsense (which on this occasion, I think it mostly was) - but that really only applies when you're talking about words and ideas. Once you've got someone pinned down on the stage, it becomes a rather different matter... Really, did no one else see it?"